Gargant
Gargant is the name that Orks give to their largest land-based war machines in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe. They are the Orkoid equivalent of a Titan. Description Although comparable in size, Gargants are not as technologically sophisticated as their Imperial, Chaos, or Eldar equivalents, relying not on meshing their minds with an artificial intelligence, daemonic fury or the assistance of imbued consciousnesses, rather sheer mechanical power and weight of fire which can be brought to bear by shouting down a “speakin’ tube.” This is not to say that Gargants are inferior creations; they are seen by Orks as mechanical bodies for their gods Gork and Mork, and as such their mere presence imbues nearby Orks (who seem to share some kind of gestalt psychic presence) with greater physical strength. Although mostly mechanical in nature (sometimes even powered by coal boilers or the like), Gargants are often fitted with highly-advanced systems such as black hole generators, power fields, and gravitational weaponry; more often than not, the Orks who design such items don’t really understand the concepts behind their technology, they simply have an idea that something spectacular will happen if they put piece A together in the right way with piece B. Such is the nature of Ork science. Power Field Generators Like their Imperial counterparts, most Gargants are equipped with a set of defensive energy fields, although due to the haphazard nature of Ork technology, these generators are not self repairing: when one of the fields goes down, it goes down for good. Creation Whilst Orks are warlike in nature and will embark upon a campaign to fight nearly anyone at the drop of a hat, occasionally, when a Warboss gets enough Orks to follow him, some of his Meks (Ork engineers) will get it into their heads to build a body for one of their gods. The construction of such a machine will get the Orks who are witness to it fired up, and their latent psychic abilities will call to all other Orks nearby (sometimes even to those in other star systems), and this means more Orks, and consequently more Meks to build more Gargants. The end result is what Orks call a Waaagh!, and what other races would call a campaign of annihilation; to an Ork, this is the pinnacle of their existence, following their gods-made-manifest into battle. Even the fact that there may be more “bodies” for their gods than there are actual gods does not bother them. Types Although Orks do not typically distinguish between the types of Gargant (with most being built from whatever happens to be lying around at the time), the other races do, and as such there are several different “classifications” of Gargant. Slasher Gargant The smallest category of Gargant, the Slasher typically mounts two weapons in place of arms and a single large belly gun. Slasher Gargants occasionally also mount a weapon or observation turret in place of a “head.” They are normally equipped with a small number of power field generators. Great Gargant The most common type of Gargant encountered, the Great Gargant is a weapon’s platform like no other. It sports either a single enormous gun or a cluster of smaller-bore cannon in its belly, two “arm” weapon hardpoints, a pair of “shoulder” hardpoints, and its “head” is usually equipped with some form of offensive technology. Sometimes this is a gravitational gun which can pick up and drop infantry or tanks, or simply crush them, and this form of non-conventional weapon can make the Gargant appear to be destroying its enemies by merely looking at them, which only increases the Ork’s belief that their gods do in fact inhabit the bodies built for them. Mega-Gargant The largest of the Gargants, the Mega Gargant is a vast, bloated machine with enough firepower to destroy entire tank regiments single handedly. Whilst other types of Gargant have different weapon loadouts depending on their creator, Mega-Gargants tend to be fitted with the same configurations. Each Mega-Gargant is equipped with a particularly powerful close combat claw on one arm, and an enormous cannon on the other. In addition, their entire front is lined with a battery of gun decks which are capable of throwing out enough artillery to level small cities in a single salvo. Mega-Gargants also mount a selection of specialist weapons on back- and shoulder-mounted towers. These are Krooz Missile launchers, which fire extremely accurate camera-guided high-explosive missiles, an exceptionally powerful gravitational array, a tower housing an Ork with psychic abilities, an oversized mortar, and an energy weapon known as a Death Ray which is capable of bypassing enemy shielding systems. UNDER CONSTRUCTION